Tiger does nothing - film at eleven

Leaping Larry

AS THE Melbourne 2010 TigerFrenzyFest kicked into gear, Tiger Woods managed to make headlines doing virtually nothing other than playing golf, which is possibly welcome news to his management group. According to an Age report by Scott Spits, the considerable spectacle of Tiger teeing off at 7.15am yesterday, in the Australian Masters pro-am at Victoria Golf Club, was greeted by two helicopters and ''hundreds of golf fans''. From this one can arguably determine that golf fans don't have a lot better to do in the morning - sleep apparently being one of those things - and that a number of bosses around Melbourne may well be calling a few people into the big office over the next week to explain exactly where they were last Wednesday.

The ''sensation'' of the day - for want of a less soporific term - apparently occurred on the third hole when one of Woods's intrepid playing partners made his strong ambit claim for the ''am'' part of the pro-am designation by taking a good thwack at the ball which then made a perfect one-point landing on the leg of a female spectator, necessitating the attentions of paramedics travelling in an extremely short, squat vehicle. Of course, one wishes the woman a speedy recovery, to accompany her new insight into exactly why pro-am events can be dangerous for spectators.

Without official confirmation as to what Woods said at the time, one can only resort to uninformed wild speculation. The possibilities may include: ''Oh, deary me''; ''Just for the record, I didn't hit that one''; ''Of course, one wishes the lady a speedy recovery''; ''Can somebody do anything about those darned helicopters?''; ''Next time, maybe consider aiming at the flag''.

Wait till I tell the kids

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WHAT'S clearly not being considered in the whole ''pro-am incident'' wash-up is the emotional state of Woods's playing partner. Before the event, no doubt, he was incredibly jazzed and full of anticipation about playing in the near vicinity of one of the game's greatest players. And then look what happens. He boofs a stray one right into the leg of a spectator, possibly bringing her down in a crumpled heap like the common antelope, right in front of his sporting hero. He may well have been tempted to emulate Sylvester the Cat's long-suffering son Junior and cry ''Oh, the SHAME of it!'' prior to putting a paper bag over his head.

A big surprise

MARK Thompson rocked up to Essendon training yesterday casually collecting the assistant coach position and apparently surprising everybody. According to the Essendon media conference, James Hird was surprised, the players were surprised, and Essendon management admitted they were surprised to be holding the media conference. One wonders why they called it, then. Just on spec, perhaps. Well, perhaps not. Don't know how surprised Geelong or anybody else was, given that all this had been rumoured since at least the end of the season. Anyway, according to football general manager Paul Hamilton, Geelong had been in contact and wished them ''all the best'', which was either jolly sporting of them, or is some sort of new-fangled way of saying ''sod the lot of yez''. ''Bomber'' Thompson famously stated that he was ''burned out'' with coaching when he resigned the Geelong senior position. Difficult to believe this exact quality was high on the job specification sheet for the Essendon assistant's job, but it's rapidly becoming apparent with Thompson that the surprises come thicker and quicker than the annual workplace Kris Kringle.

How Green was my Flores

DANNY Green and his November 17 IBO cruiserweight challenger, B.J. Flores, came head to head on Fox Sports News yesterday afternoon for what turned out to be an unexpectedly civilised chat, possibly to the disappointment of their interviewers. The boys went soft-sell, mainly talking up the difference in size between the two - B.J. being the larger. Green, below, contended that boxing was a ''tough game'' and B.J. said that when the talk was done and the punches were being felt, only he and Green would know what that felt like. Unexceptional sentiments, but not exactly breaking news. Although Green talked him up freely (''a beautiful jab''), Flores, while undefeated and with a 60 per cent KO win percentage, has something of a nebulous record in terms of quality of opposition. There's a lot of red (losses) on their recent records chart, to put it bluntly. And finding a world ranking for him on either The Ring magazine or boxing records lists is a bit of a challenge, chiefly because he doesn't seem to be there. However his US billing is ''El Peligroso'' The Dangerous One, apparently, which certainly sounds intimidating. Hopefully he can live up to it on November 17, or he might become The Horizontal One.

Spectacularly idiotic golf quiz

It's our duty to this fair city to keep the Tiger Woods frenzy a-percolating throughout Mr Woods's time here. In that spirit, you are invited to attempt this, ahem, challenging golf quiz.

1. If a large striped species of jungle cat played golf, in theory what kind of club would individuals of that species generally use to play a tee-shot on longer holes?

2. If the nickname of the guitar player who joined the Rolling Stones in the mid-1970s was ''Tiger'' - which it isn't - what would he be known as? Particularly if he played golf.

3. At one point, three major international sporting stars were used in an advertising campaign for Gillette. Two of them were Roger Federer and Thierry Henry. Name the third.

4. If the Hundred Acre Wood from A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh stories contained a golf course, and was named after the character in those stories, which was both striped and bouncy, what would it be called?

5. A kitten of the suddenly popular and immensely expensive breed resembling tiny tigers is adopted by a golfing family named Woods. How might this animal be referred to by the family's neighbours?